somewhat sheepishly that he’d been feeling a need for change himself. He’d not been able to see – or hadn’t wanted to see – that her ideas were not at all the same as his.
New pastures! Tears collected under her eyelids as she thought about her lovely old garden and Phil’s apparent indifference to it. Maybe it had been stupid of her, but she had mown and clipped and tidied, right up to the last moment. Philip, seemingly so easily able to shed all his old attachments, had been irritated to find her dead-heading the last of the tulips while the men were carting the dustbin away.
‘There won’t be anyone here to appreciate your efforts,’ he told her, gazing around for the last time at the immaculate scene. He might have been surveying crop-damage, judging by the look on his face. ‘Anyway, the relocation company will be taking care of all this. It’s their responsibility now.’ He glanced up at the guttering as though, in accordance with sod’s law, it might come clattering down at this crucial stage of the transaction and he would yet have to see to its repair. He really couldn’t wait to turn his back on it all, it seemed.
Running a hand for the last time over the perfect globe of her favourite Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana’, Marjorie had doubted that anyone would lavish as much loving care on her prized specimens as she had. Over the years she had painstakingly cultivated every inch of the hundred-foot plot to create a miniature paradise. It was her proudest achievement – after the girls, of course.
When she and Phil had first moved in, the garden had contained only a rectangle of grass, one cherry tree, a grave-like island bed and a straight concrete path. It seemed inconceivable that a 1930s semi could have remained so unaltered throughout its previous ownership, but there it was. And it stayed that way for the first two years of their marriage. Philip had mown the lawn, when pressed, and Marjorie had weeded the bed.
Her passion for gardening had not begun until Becky’s first summer. Having rocked the baby to silence in her pram, she would stretch herself out under the cherry tree beside her and try to grab a little sleep. But while her body craved rest from the hard work that one small child seemed to generate, her mind could not ignore her surroundings. She found herself longing to conceal the bare wood fence, to grow something against the house, to erect a trellis against a too-keen-to-gossip neighbour.
Soon she found herself doing more than pulling weeds. She scattered seeds, cadged cuttings, scraped money from the housekeeping for minuscule shrubs. And Philip was nagged into doing a bit more than just the mowing; he put up trellises, screened the dustbin, and relaid the path with stepping-stones. In time the garden took shape. Now largely Marjorie’s preserve since Phil had been far too busy in recent years, it was the envy of all who saw it … or had been.
A tear trickled towards her ear, threatening to dampen the hotel’s lumpy pillow, and as she reached up to wipe it away Phil went on in his bright, bracing tone: ‘It’s going to be fun, you know.’
Lying snugly within the confines of the four-poster he set out his plans for their future life. There would be new places to investigate, new friends to be made, new neighbours to meet. A number of the neighbours would be Spittal’s employees. ‘Brightwells is so handy for them, you see.’
None of them was known to Marjorie though. The only Spittal’s people she knew were the redundant ones being left behind in London. And new friends? How would they make new friends? It was something they hadn’t had to do for a long time, and those they’d had up until now had been acquired with no conscious effort that she could recall. They’d just happened.
But she must stop this destructive line of thought; it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Looking backwards was pointless. She must start addressing the future. Be positive. Take life by the scruff of the neck and make it work for her. Yes, that’s what she would do: find herself a new role and build a whole new life. Somehow she must be able to claw her way back to the state of happiness and hope that had been hers until so recently. Couldn’t she? Surely it wasn’t that impossible?
And certainly her problems appeared less daunting the following morning as she spread sweet jelly-like marmalade on cold triangles of brittle toast. The sun was shining in a cloudless haze of blue, and she could almost feel in holiday mood as she gazed through the hotel window.
Phil drummed his fingers on his place mat, impatient to take her to the new house. ‘First you complain they’ve brought the toast before you’re ready for it,’ he grumbled, ‘then you wolf six slices.’
‘Moving’s given me an appetite,’ she said, and went on crunching slowly.
‘Aren’t you keen to see the new house?’ His eyes danced as though he had a huge, mysterious Christmas present waiting for her.
So far she had not set eyes on their new home. Philip had acquired it entirely on his own, having seen it briefly on a visit to his new place of work. Such had been Marjorie’s resentment that she had steadfastly refused to go down to Bristol with him on that occasion, nor had she been anywhere near it since. She’d been curious about it, naturally, and now the thought of it gave her a fluttery sensation inside – what woman wouldn’t feel stirrings of interest at the prospect of a brand new house? – but she wasn’t going to let on to Philip.
She’d merely sniffed when he’d first shown her the artist’s impression of Plot 19, The Paddock, Brightwells. He had thrust the estate agent’s brochure at her the minute he’d arrived home from his trip, crossing his heart and swearing to die that the house he’d found for them looked just like the picture on the front. It was ready for immediate occupancy, too, he told her, the couple who’d originally intended buying it having dropped out, and the builders had set an incentive to exchange contracts within a month – an incentive that Phil told her he was keen to take advantage of.
‘Why have the couple dropped out?’ Marjorie asked, drying her hands on the kitchen towel and studying the picture. It was a classy-looking place, admittedly, and she quite liked looking at houses even though she had no intention of moving out of the one she was in, so she took the details into the through-room and spread them about her on the settee.
Phil followed her like an eager puppy. ‘I don’t know why they dropped out, exactly. The agent didn’t say. People do change their minds, you know.’
‘Not usually at so late a stage,’ Marjorie argued. She smelt a rat already. There must be something wrong with it, although it certainly looked fine on paper.
‘A spacious lounge,’ she muttered to herself, skipping through the blurb, ‘ample dining room and a Victorian-style conservatory?’ Not only that but a study, too, where Phil could keep his astronomy books. And the kitchen was an absolute knockout. Enjoying cooking as much as she did, it was hard not to feel a thrill.
She studied her husband for a moment. ‘You say those people had even chosen the bathroom tiles, and all the fittings and carpets?’
‘Yes, yes, they had. But nothing we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves. That’s the beauty of it all: we could move in straight away.’ His eyes glazed over. ‘Just imagine! No more worries about this jerry-built heap. No more patching up the roof, or the dodgy bit of guttering round the back …’
‘Bit on the pricey side for the provinces, isn’t it?’
Phil waggled his hand judiciously. ‘So-so.’
Marjorie frowned; events felt as though they were racing along at a rate of knots beneath her reluctant feet. Phil had told her the other day that they wouldn’t even have to sell their own house before buying the new one: the relocation company would take it on. All they had to do once the legal side had been completed
